Abigail watched it all as if she was falling down a smooth, dark shaft. She saw Jimmy’s back arch, and then his scream grew faint as light constricted.
Her fingers closed on something sharp.
Pain behind her eyes.
Michael moved as Jimmy howled, as Jimmy’s gun came around to meet the curve of Stevan’s skull. A shot crashed out and Jimmy’s hand came free, a ragged chunk missing between the thumb and first finger. Another step and Michael dove for the forty-five, right hand on the grip, shoulder rolling to take the fall. He felt dust in his teeth, movement as he came up on one knee and slid in the dirt. Jimmy fired first, two rounds that should not have missed, but did. Michael snapped off a shot, hit Jimmy high in the chest. Staggered him. But Jimmy’s finger was still on the trigger, still pulling as shots crashed through the barn, and Michael took one in the leg. The shot knocked him down, pain enough to star his vision, but not nearly enough to take him out. Michael fired half-blind, buying seconds. He got a hand down, steadied himself as Jimmy lunged left, going for the dowel that hung four feet away. Maybe he knew he was done; maybe he thought he’d use it to get Michael under control. Michael fired again, took a piece out of Jimmy’s neck. He stumbled, hand out and grasping. Michael fired another round, hit an inch right of the spine. It drove Jimmy forward, all but dead on his feet. But his hand was out and close.
Inches.
Spread fingers coming down.
Michael moved for a head shot, but knew he’d be too late. Three and half pounds of pressure. Jimmy’s fingers almost there.
Then Abigail Vane came out of nowhere, small and fast and lightning sure. Michael hadn’t even seen her get up, but there she was, a crescent of rusty metal in her hand-a twenty-inch sickle that rose in a blurred, brown arc and took Jimmy’s hand off at the wrist. The stump of his arm hit the dowel, made it swing.
Michael put the next one in his skull.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Abigail drove them out. She looked small behind the wheel of the Mercedes, shoulders rolled, head tucked down as if to dodge a blow. In the back, fingers twined, wet and slick. Blood pooled in the seats as Michael cradled Elena and fought the pain in his leg. They kept their heads down, and no one spoke until Abigail pulled into the lot of a dump motel two towns over. She found an empty spot under the limbs of a tree. Traffic flickered beyond a chain-link fence. “You alive back there?”
“We’re still here.”
“Stay in the car.”
She didn’t look at them as she got out.
Air blew warm from the vents. A coppery smell. Gun smoke and clean leather. Michael kissed Elena’s hair, and her hand tightened on his arm. She was in shock, he thought, her skin cold to the touch, lips dusted blue. He gentled bits of tape from her skin, her hair. An acorn hit the roof, and she jerked in his arms. “It’s okay, baby.”
There was silence and breath and dark eyes staring.
“You keep saying that.”
It came as a whisper, her first words since he’d carried her out. Michael kissed her forehead, and when she turned her cheek into his chest, she said, “You came for me.”
“Of course I did.”
“You came…”
Her fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt. Her voice fell off, and Michael smeared tears from his face with the back of his hand.
When Abigail returned, she said, “I got you a room in the back.”
“We need a doctor.”
“Is it bad?”
Michael ground his teeth. “Pretty bad.”
She moved the car, opened the room and got them out when no one was around. They were a pitiful sight, all broken and cut and gunshot. Michael’s leg worked, but barely. No bones broken, no arteries hit.
Elena cried out when he put her on the bed.
Michael got her water, while Abigail brought things in from the car. She put a first-aid kit on the table. “From the trunk,” she said, then laid out Michael’s pistols and Jessup’s thirty-eight. She brought in the duffel bag, which held the Hemingway and the cash. She looked at Elena, at the sodden cloth tied around Michael’s leg. “I should hurry.”
Michael caught her at the door. His face was ashen, the pain a devil in his leg. “I need to thank you.” She stammered something, and for the first time since it went down, Michael really looked at her face. She was shell-shocked, her eyes bruised-looking and scared.
She shook her head, seemed for the first time to be doubt-filled and old. “Don’t-”
“I would have lost her without you.” He took her hand, felt bones that were light and small. “Do you understand what that means to me?”
“I mean it, Michael. Don’t.”
“Look at me, Abigail.”
“I don’t remember.”
That stopped him. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes darted to Elena, the guns, the door: everywhere but Michael’s face. “I remember being kicked and being hurt.” She touched her temple, which was wine-dark and swollen. “I remember the feel of sharp metal in my fingers.”
“The sickle-”
“I remember rage, and I remember driving.”
Michael took her head gently in his hands and tilted it so light touched on the place she’d been kicked. Jimmy had struck her in the right temple. The swelling was considerable, skin dark and stretched. “Painful?”
“Extremely.”
“Is your vision blurred?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
“Can you drive?”
“I feel okay to drive.”
He released her, but put one hand on the door. “You saved Elena’s life,” he said. “That means you saved mine. Things like that matter to me. I won’t forget it.”
“That’s funny.”
“What?”
She managed a decent smile. “It seems I already have.”
The mood lightened as much as it could, but Michael kept his hand on the door. “Listen, I know a thing or two about situations like this. Don’t let people see blood in the car. Don’t tell anyone what happened.”
“I won’t.”
